Re-purposing a modern shotgun barrel in a muzzleloader stock?

[Leatherbark]

Hello guys

I am curious if anyone has ever used a modern shotgun barrel on their muzzleloader by installing a breech plug, drum and soldered a rib with thimbles? If I sawed off the chamber of said 12 gauge barrel would the .729 hole or thereabouts thread good enough for a 3/4 x 16 breechplug? Or would a 16 or 20 be a better candidate?  Would this be flirting with disaster.   The reason I ask is I regret selling my 12 gauge New Englander barrel and I have access to doner barrels, and an old 15/16ths channel TC Pennsylvania hunter stock for this experiment.  Of course I'd have to bed the round barrel into the octagon forend and use a longer than normal breechplug and make a chambered breech for good thread engagement of the drum. Plus d-farb the markings .

Bob

[heinz]

Not a good idea.  The breach will give you problems.  It would be easier to bore a TC rifled barrel out to 20 gauge

[Ky-Flinter]

Get a copy of the book Recreating the Double Barrel Muzzle-Loading Shotgun by William R. Brockway.  He tells how to convert cartridge barrels to ML.

-Ron

[frogwalking]

I was about 18 when I did this.  I bought a new, unchambered 12 gauge barrel from Numrich.  Miller Lamb put a breechplug in it.  I filed the breech end octagon and installed a drum and nipple.  I don't remember if I installed a rib, but probably just made a thimble and soldered it onto the barrel.  It shot ok, with no problems.  The barrel I bought had a thick breech end as it was made to be used with many different shotguns.  If the barrel is thin, you may have problems with the drum blowing out. 

My best friend made a rifle using the cut-off muzzle end of a Spencer rifle barrel. It was a bit thin, so Miller made a piece that he silver soldered to the side of the barrel so the threads of the drum had more thickness to tap into.  I am not sure what the good folks here think of this way to use a piece of civil war rifle barrel, but Chuck still shoots it.  (Made about 1966 when we were young and poor)

[Leatherbark]

Been doing some research. A 12 gauge chamber is .8111 inch at the back tapering to .7890 inch up at the front.  If I sawed off the chamber and left about an inch of it I could tap it for a 7/8 x 14 fine thread grade 8 bolt and tighten it up against the step in the end of the chamber.  The drill size for a 7/8 x 14 bolt is .8125 so I wouldn't even need the drill maybe.  I could just tap the chamber (if it isn't too hard of steel).  As far as barrel thickness for a drum I will drill a 3/8ths inch communication hole in the face of the new breechplug and insert the drum through the barrel and into the side of the breech plug  to make contact with the communication hole.  I prefer to use drums this way for full thread engagement.   A chambered breech done this way isn't as troublesome as some of the factory chambered breeches.  The above is what happens when you have a day off from work and start thinking about something to do.

Bob

[kutter]

There's no real 'step' at the front end of a shotgun cartridge chamber.

The chamber length dimension ends and what is called a forcing cone begins.
The forcing cone is simply a tapered section that gently leads from the dia of the front of the chamber to the dia of the bore. You can see it inside the bore as that dark ring (shadow) just in front of the chamber itself. That's the tapered section betw the chamber and the bore.

The length varies with different manufacturers and eras of mfg.
Older bbls chambered and made when paper shotshells were common and were loaded with cardboard and fiber filler wads will have much shorter and abrupt forcing cones.  About the mid 60's when plastic shells and wads became common is when the forcing cones were starting to be cut much more gradual and thus longer.

I don't know if all this puts a crimp in the plans to cut and tap the chamber out and seat a breech plug, But just so you know that there isn;t a step or shoulder in there right in front of the chamber to seat the plug against as it sits now.

[JBJ]

Get a copy of the book Recreating the Double Barrel Muzzle-Loading Shotgun by William R. Brockway.  He tells how to convert cartridge barrels to ML.

-Ron

Do what Ron has suggested. I followed Brockway's directions using one of the 12 bore double barrel sets from Belgium that Dixie offered years ago. Getting the breech plugs fitted wasn't near the effort required to get the various  "lumps" (foreend latch point, etc.) removed from the bottom of the barrels. With hand tools it was a chore. In the end, I wound up with a nice set of tubes, but - . The book is worth buying and  directions worked! Good luck with the project.
J.B.

[msellers]

I haven't tried buying anything from these guys yet, but they claim to have a ton of different options. Might find something that would work for your purposes.

http://www.e-sarcoinc.com/barrelblanks.aspx
Mike

[stuart cee dub]

 Years ago I had two smooth bore gun barrels 28 ga from Gunparts corp breeched and vented to make a little trade guns. I think they were about 30 bucks a piece at the time .Neither had the chamber cut yet.

These were originally made to be blanks for a smokeless shotgun .I think I had about 70 bucks in machining into each as I farmed out the work .

One made a rather nice little trade gun which I sold .I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it. Frankly if I were to do it again I wouldn't bother ,it's easier just to buy a proper barrel .
 

[okawbow]

I bought a barrel from a member of this site, a few years ago. It was a 12 gauge with full choke, about 30" long. Already had a 7/8" breech plug installed.

I made my turkey gun with that barrel and have taken 8 turkeys with it. A little hard to load because of the full choke, but I only get one shot on turkeys most of the time. I use 90 grains 2F and the same measure of #6 shot. Deadly out to 40 yards.
P8200426 by okawbow, on Flickr

P7280393 by okawbow, on Flickr

[Jerry V Lape]

I would be surprised if by the time you get done cobbling the barrel and breech together that you wouldn't be money ahead to purchase a barrel and breech already ready joined from one of the several barrel makers or dealers.  And you would be ready to proceed with the balance of your project. 

[frogwalking]

Good point, Jerry.  Even if you continued on track with a modern barrel, use a flintlock and ditch the drum.

[Leatherbark]

Thanks guys

The barrel is one I've had a while.  I'll be mounting and bedding it in a TC Pennsylvania Hunter stock I've had laying around for years and use an L&R RPL flintlock  Just a project for the heck of it. 

Bob

[kutter]

[quote...  Just a project for the heck of it.  [/quote]



Those are the best kind..

[Scota4570]

From Brockway's book.  Make the nose of the plug fit the forcing cone. 

[Leatherbark]

Thanks for taking the time to scan that image Scota.  I envisioned cutting off most of the chamber except for about 1 inch.  I will match the front of the 7/8 x 14 bolt to the forcing cone.  I will also have a chamber in the end of the bolt/breechplug but I figure it will only hold about 20 grains or so. I will have to weld a tang after sawing off the bolt and making a bolster out of the stub to weld the tang to.

Bob

[hudson]

A thought when looking at the drawing I am reminded of my CVA days. CVA put that cross drilled hole at the bottom of the chamber. Crud from loading, especially from wiping/cleaning would collect at the bottom and cause a misfire. On the Plugs I build I move it forward a bit problem solved.

[Scota4570]

"I will have to weld a tang after sawing off the bolt and making a bolster out of the stub to weld the tang to."

You'd get a neater job if you made a hooked breech.  It is not as difficult as you imagine.  Make it from a piece of "U" channel steel stock.  You will end up turning the plug on a lathe to have enough material to put the vent and the hook.  It will be worth the extra work IMHO. 

[Daryl]

A thought when looking at the drawing I am reminded of my CVA days. CVA put that cross drilled hole at the bottom of the chamber. Crud from loading, especially from wiping/cleaning would collect at the bottom and cause a misfire. On the Plugs I build I move it forward a bit problem solved.

If you load so you don't have to wipe or swab, no problem, but I do see your point. I find that even without lubed wads, I can

shoot and shoot with a smoothbore - no wiping needed.  With the choked muzzle on my 20bore, I find the lubed wads from "Track" work

a treat! As my choke is only about a strong imp/cyl, loading is easy and patterns are super - about modified. Opening up the full choke

will still give you killing patterns to 40yards, but make loading a lot easier.

[Scota4570]

A thought when looking at the drawing I am reminded of my CVA days. CVA put that cross drilled hole at the bottom of the chamber. Crud from loading, especially from wiping/cleaning would collect at the bottom and cause a misfire. On the Plugs I build I move it forward a bit problem solved.

I built a caplock shotgun as suggested in Brockway's book. I never had a misfire I can recall. I also own a beretta O/U caplock, it is terrible about misfires.  I made a side slapper rifle with the nipple in the side of the bore.  It is my most reliable of all...no surprise.   

It to me it seems that a chamber of sufficient bore alleviates this problem.  I had a 45 late Hatfield with a long skinny 22 cal chamber.  IT was bad.  I opened it up to 5/16" and it worked better.  I do not recall what size I used in the shotgun, probably 3/8 or 1/2".  At any rate it was large enough to not plug up with crud. 

[Joe Stein]

"I will have to weld a tang after sawing off the bolt and making a bolster out of the stub to weld the tang to."

You'd get a neater job if you made a hooked breech.  It is not as difficult as you imagine.  Make it from a piece of "U" channel steel stock.  You will end up turning the plug on a lathe to have enough material to put the vent and the hook.  It will be worth the extra work IMHO.

Re making a hooked breech, here you go. Thanks to Curtis. 
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=27959.0

[Leatherbark]

Well I picked me up a 12 gauge 30 inch full choke barrel from ebay for $30.  I sawed it off to where the breech plug will be around 1-1/2 inches long.  The front of the plug is tapered to seal up against the forcing cone instead of the normal step.

 The 7/8 x 14 tap was $13. Had to buy (4) 7/8 x 14 grade 8 bolts to get one LOL.  That set me back $13.  A rib and thimbles was around $40.  So I've got a little over $100 in this barrel so far.

 I have a L&R RPL flintlock on the way.  All of this will be mounted in a TC Pennsylvania stock I had to hog out to fit this barrel and acraglas it in this weekend.  The 7/8 x 14 breech plug is 1-1/2 inches long with around a .400 inch wide and around an inch deep firing chamber in order to line up for the vent.  I should have measured how much powder that breech will hold but i doubt it is over 40 grains.  Since this barrel is about 1-1/8 at the breech I'll be needing to file a flat for the flint bolster to mate up.  I'll put me a nice chocolate brown on it all in the end.  Lord its going to be light. Probably too light for a 12 gauge.   Lord a milling machine would be so much easier!

Bob